


Defanatus

by snappleducated



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, ghost pepper vanilla, how much trouble do you get in for swearing in the tags, i shouldn't tag things, is this explicit, light slapping, mindless smut, probably rude to catholicism, spicy vanilla lol, talk dirty to me, teasing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 20:57:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11321595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snappleducated/pseuds/snappleducated
Summary: Bad Catholic Reyes attempts to waylay religious guilt by abstaining from sex on Easter. Ryder tramples Easter.





	Defanatus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgathaCrispy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgathaCrispy/gifts).



> **Notes** : Both this and _Holy Water_ (by AgathaCrispy) were born during a discussion about how Reyes probably comes from a Catholic background. It was a very exciting realization about a personal detail I would usually handle with at least attempted respect. But this is fanfic and the internet makes me anonymous.  
>  **Disclaimer** : I am agnostic and was raised Methodist. Unless my grandma was in town. Then we were definitely Lutheran.

“Well maybe you’d feel differently if you were fucking my mouth.”

“Stop,” Reyes whined. More than once, his hands had flinched up to cover his ears. It was only pride that kept him from fleeing the room. Perched determinedly on his lap, Ryder sniggered like a goblin.

“Your big, hard cock—”

“I hate you.”

“—and on _Easter_!” She practically screamed the word _Easter_. Reyes sort of hoped that Heaven and God and the ghost of his sweet mother hadn’t gone interstellar to witness this moment. The thought of his soul being plunged into eternal limbo was actually preferable to explaining this. He’d tried shaking her off about four times already. Like a Hydra, each time she came back stronger, and more naked.

He fixed her with a violent stare. “I’ll remember this.”

“Yes,” she purred. “Poor me. Dreadful, to be ravished by such a handsome, well-endowed man. What will he do to me? Maybe I’ll be spanked? Maybe he’ll pull my hair? Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re way too kinky to be satisfied with just that…” she lay a delicate hand across his erection, teasing her fingertips across the front of his pants. Reyes smacked the back of his head harder against his recliner. His work recliner. The one he’d sat down in, hours earlier, to do _work_. Or at least, some of his more boring, less salacious work.

It was not going so well.

“I’m already a bad Catholic, leave it alone,” he growled. It was hard to hold onto his righteous indignation and protest the need for boundaries when she giggled like that.

“No way.” Ryder hummed. She leaned over him, hair framing her face. He could feel her breath fan across his forehead, tickling and heating the tips of his ears. “This is payback for when you tied me to the bed last week.”

“You asked me to.” Then, and followed swiftly by penance, he added, “You _begged_ me to.”

“Oho.” She rocked back, her hand leaving him. She stuck her chest out proudly. He did not look. “ _Oho_. He snaps.” She bounced with excitement, and Reyes’ was suddenly distracted. God. His hand literally twitched.

“If you wanted to be in charge, you could have just asked me,” he said, in what passed for a measured, reasonable tone. He should tie her wrists to her ankles and DAMN— _damn_. “Another time,” Reyes added, too late, strangled. Ryder narrowed her eyes, sniffing.

“Why would I ask? Authority is something to be seized.” And seize she did. He bit his lip, harder than he should have, hoping that mental swearing was less of a violation than whatever curses kept escaping him. She’d been at this for _hours_. Reyes actually couldn’t remember a time he’d seen her this happy. _Maybe_ when he’d invested in bringing punk music to Andromeda. Maybe. (Horrible stuff, in his opinion.)

He tried to smile. “You seem very confident. Maybe you should consider the possibility that I was going easy on you before.”

Ryder yawned. “It’s funny because the only thing tying you down are antiquated traditions and half-assed guilt.”

“Everybody loves bondage.”

“I _know_ ,” she whined. “But you won’t do it to me. Not even a little religious flagellation. It’s not fair.”

“There’s no such thing as religious flagellation. There’s perverts and religion and sometimes the two cross over.” He was trying not to think about Ryder with a whip. Rather than being sexy, the idea was sort of adorable. “I don’t know why you’re still trying.”

She immediately switched gears, riding that guilt train hard. She curled against his chest, opening her eyes as big as they’d go. In a small voice she mumbled. “It’s just…I’ve been wandering all over the galaxy, doing so many scary things, and I just thought that maybe, on my day off, I could spend it unwinding with—with my…” she trailed off, now gazing up at him pleadingly. She sniffled a little, curiously.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Reyes offered. She was really screwing up her face now.

“Shut up. I just need a second.”

His arousal was, fortunately, giving way to petty smugness. He leaned back with more ease than before. “Does the savior of Andromeda always rely on crocodile tears?”

“Don’t be unfair, I got naked first.” She bit her lip. He could almost see the sad puppies straining across her mind’s eye. He watched her for a moment, amused to see that she’d thrown her whole body into the effort of producing one little tear.

He pinched her nipple.

“ _Ow_!” Ryder yelped, twisting swiftly away. When she looked back there was, indeed, a small wet patch beneath one eye. “What was that?”

“You know what it was,” Reyes growled. Then caught himself. Then apologized to Jesus. The Virgin Mary. A few saints. Anyone who would accept his apology, really.

Ryder was still rubbing her breast. She sniffed again, this time with real wetness. “You’re so _mean_. I’m only twenty two!”

The guilt was now nuanced, multi-layered, developing its own vocabulary. Reyes buried his face in his hands. He wanted to argue in his own defense. There was absolutely nothing to say. Every centimeter of her stupidly perfect body was young, young, _young_. Even her ridiculous, nebulous slang, her happily chirped ‘yeah!’, her somewhat inconsistent tolerance for alcohol, all of it. _Enraging_.

“It turns you on,” Ryder sang in his ear. She was kicking her feet. She did these things on purpose. “Don’t lie to me.”

“You’re so weird.”

“Hey, _I_ only sleep with twenty fives and up.” She chortled proudly. He should have pinched harder. Reyes glared, now keenly aware that he was in the presence of shining, dewy youth. Squirmy youth. Inappropriately aggressive, sexually deviant youth. He held her tightly around the waist, felt the hard, lean muscle that rested just beneath her skin. He wanted to roll his hands up, just slightly, so she’d feel the dig of his nails, no more fingertips, and no more softness. Her skin, how clean she smelled. He didn’t ever fully know how to handle her.

“Why do you torture me?” he asked, meaning it. She looked down, still grinning.

“Because I usually can’t!”

“That isn’t true,” he muttered. She appeared not to hear him, still wriggling, now turning to straddle him, so that she faced him completely. His hand slid from her waist to the band of fabric that stretched over her hip, his thumb play with the elastic. Thank god there were no adorable prints to be found, praise Jesus for basic black cotton. Anymore and he really _would_ have to look into self-flagellation.

“I think,” she began, with a tone of enlightenment, “I think that you have observed enough Easter for now, and should probably sleep with me, because to start off with, I think there is a pretty good chance that our 600 years of space travel and, I don’t know, time zones—both of those things make it seem likely that it is not even Easter. Furthermore. You didn’t exactly start the day by going to church.”

His forehead thudded against her clavicle. His palm slid over her flank, buttock. He breathed. “No.”

“Yes, you resist so well,” she soothed, now scratching comfortingly at his neck. “I’m very impressed.”

“I want to shut you up.” He said, flatly, aware of her breathing, how her chest rose and fell. A strange and mingling emotion filled him, at once an attraction to the body that curved and folded around him—and an appreciation, an almost hypnotic fascination with how perfectly she worked.

He hated himself.

“Too bad you can’t,” Ryder hummed. She’d rested the soft point of her chin on top of his head. He could feel her voice, vibrating through her. “Nobody is more disappointed than me.”

He smoothed down her leg, to the bump of her knee, the delicate, ticklish skin behind it. “What do you think? Should I be meaner to you?”

“But you like being sweet.” She purred. “The _sweetest_. You spoil me.”

Reyes sighed. It was a very deep sigh, one that came from the pit of his stomach, the dried well of self-restraint. “So that’s your newest trick?”

“I’m just saying. It would be nice if you spoiled me now.” Her hands splayed out over his shoulders, down his back. Sometimes she’d scratch him so hard, the marks would be there days later. Sometimes she seemed to hardly touch him. He opened his mouth, catching the side of her breast between his teeth, and biting just enough to test the skin’s pliancy, pressure increasing until she squeaked, and leaned away from him.

“ _Ow_.” She rubbed at the impression his teeth had left, the groves and saliva. “I didn’t mean like that—”

He yanked her forward by the hips, so she overbalanced and had to catch herself against his chest, but he was ready for that too, and he had her wrists gathered in one hand, and pined down, and she was strong, but not strong enough to escape easily. Her wrists, he knew, were weak from years spent boxing, sparring, crash landings. She would never pull on them hard enough to break free. Her ankles were the same way, fundamentally unsound, the victims of prior damage. When he thought of someone else knowing these things about her, it was hard to keep himself from breaking things. Her past, even maybe her future lovers – they could have her pleasures. They couldn’t have her weaknesses.

She was staring at him, wide eyed, her pupils enormous. Her pulse jumped, a quick thing, frantic beneath his thumb. He held her still, against him. “Spoil you?” he asked. She inhaled, biting her lip.  
“You should earn it.”

Her gaze shook for a moment, wavering away. _I’m only twenty two_. He could be hard on her. He could wear her down from the outside-in, she couldn’t leave him as young as she came.

“Did anyone ever tell you, you can be kind of scary?” she asked. She smiled at him, questioning. He didn’t smile back.

“Are you just gonna talk?”

She blinked, went distant, and came back to him. “ _No_ ,” she muttered. She tugged on her wrists. “Fine. Let go.”

He just stared at her. She smiled again. “Please let go.”

He did, and she slid to the floor in front of him, legs folded to either side of her, staring up. Her head rocked to the side so that her cheek rested against his leg. He stroked her bangs back behind on ear, lingered at the hinge of her jaw. “See?” she said, a little slyness creeping back into her mouth, a little more temptation. “You coulda gotten here ages ago. I told you, you’d feel differently, if you just fucked me in the mouth.”

He swatted her cheek, just hard enough to sting. “Don’t get too cocky.”

She grinned up at him, still cuddled against his thigh. Her cheek was turning pink, even as he touched the skin there, fever hot and bright. “That better not bruise. I have an award ceremony tomorrow.”

He covered the bloom spreading across her face. “I don’t care.”

She beamed at him, her whole face glowing. “I love you,” she said. It sounded new. It sounded different. She must have told him a hundred times. She turned her head and bit into the meat of his leg, through the rough fabric of his pants. Her arms wrapped up and around him, resting on top of his thighs. She nuzzled the front of his pants. “I love you,” she said again. “You’re so good.”

He lifted himself so that she could pull his pants from him, still swearing in his head, _damn damn damn damn_ , until it became almost a chant, until the second her lips touched his skin and then he thought of nothing. There was only the sort-of unspoken presence she could fill a room with, that poured into him now. The thing that he could never name and never take from her. Her fingers, slick with her own saliva, traced and scratched at where he was most vulnerable, and he was biting his own hand now. He wondered sometimes if he was more addicted to her or to the guilt that came with her, the satisfying rush of pleasure and corruption and ruin, the knowledge that she would never really change.

“Come here,” he gasped. She pulled away from him, standing and fixing to peel off her plain black underwear, but _no, keep it on,_ he grabbed her, turned her, pulled her back against him and held her by the throat, just barely stroking the flesh tucked behind thin cotton.

She wriggled violently. “I’m _ready_.”

“I know,” he said. Spitefully, she tried to reach back to handle him, and he growled, tightening his grip on her neck until she made a sort of wheezing noise, one hand coming up to tap gently for mercy.

“You’re too impatient,” he told her. She was breathing quickly, shivering a little. He kissed the cheek he’d smacked earlier, the still-burning skin. Ryder whined, her heels beating the floor.

“ _You’re_ too bossy,” she countered. “You never listen to me.”

He stroked her absently, inconsistently. She made an outraged, guttural noise. “Good. Someone needs to keep you in line.”

“I can still arrest you,” she muttered. He pressed a little harder, she ground against his hand. “This is such bullshit. I bet—you don’t—even know _shit_ about Catholicism.”

“Faith is very personal.”

“I hate you,” she breathed. Her head dropped back against him, lolling, eyes closed. Her back arched away from him, almost violently, when his fingers slid into her.

“You love me,” he reminded her. “I don’t accept refunds.” Her fingers were claws, digging into his thighs, painful. Was it always so painful? She had turned her face against his neck, her breath hot and damp and fast. Her feet still skittered around, looking for something to kick against, to propel herself to the place she wanted to be.

She pulled her head up to face him, her eyes glassy, but still grinning with an unmatchable, cocky grin. “ _You_ love a twenty two year old so that’s way, way worse—”

“Why do you keep talking about that?” He released her, lifted her by the hips. Her underwear were already pushed to the side, she slid around him so easily, almost expertly, and she shuddered in the way that she always did—with her whole body. “It doesn’t matter,” he told her, quietly, now running his hands over her stomach, ribs, breasts. She was shaking as she began to move against him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. “ _You_ are the only thing that matters.”

Her shoulders ratcheted up, the muscles of her back hardening against his chest. “I want—I want—” she stammered. “I want you on top of me.” She wasn’t grinning anymore. She was a snarl of tension.

“Okay,” he said, and she scrambled off him, looking almost relieved when he followed, when he pushed her down. She clung to him while he worked himself against her, whispering curses in his ear, her voice shaking.

“Touch me,” she begged, flushed almost to her navel, covered in sweat. He did and she jerked wildly, nearly throwing him off her, then closed around him. She came and he came and in the cooling seconds that followed, that wild vibrancy, that presence, left the room and flowed back into her. Ryder began to giggle.

Reyes lifted his head, a disdainful eyebrow. “What _now_?”

“Nothing. Just. We’re surprisingly traditional.”

He let his cheek fall back against her tangled hair, the tips of their noses almost touching. “Well, you know. I am Catholic.”

Damn.

 


End file.
